In homes and office buildings of today, many facilities and functions are controlled and maintained by electronics and automated management systems. Those control systems applies not only to traditionally used climate control, remote controlled curtains and air flow regulation systems, but nowadays also to security applications, such as locking devices and alarm systems, electric lighting and kitchen appliances to mention only a few of the many possibilities.
Several management systems have been proposed for handling and controlling residential functions, both in people's homes and in office buildings. One of the proposed service gateway systems is disclosed in the international patent application WO 99/65192, which is a multi-service gateway and communication platform for connectivity based systems. A residential platform and control system is described, intended to simultaneously control and regulate a large number of residential services. Due to the large number and variation of implemented residential services managed by the mentioned service gateway system, the complexity related to developing such a single gateway hosting a large number of services shall not be under-estimated. A service gateway system like the one in the above-mentioned international patent application must be unconditionally adapted to, and meet all standards involved in each application area. Sometimes various services and standards are difficult or even impossible to combine, like for instance how to keep the right balance between protection of high-security applications such as alarm and energy control, and simultaneously managing medium-security entertainment applications such as gaming and news services.
Another difficulty for the developer or manufacturer of residential management systems are safety requirements from several involved public authorities, including fire departments and insurance companies. Unless all the requirements from each involved public authority and institution are met, the developed management system will not be approved by the authorities and institutions for public use in large scale, even though it may be very promising.
However, consideration to all requirements that a residential management system is confronted with, inevitably makes the system expensive. Moreover, it might even be too complicated to build a general system which meets requirements on different markets. Thus, large volume production may not even be possible, which is an absolute prerequisite for reaching an attractive price on the market.
Hence, there is a need for a simplified technique leading towards less costly residential management systems for controlling and handling residential services, primarily provided in people's homes.